Volume 265 | No. 10

2020—Li Wenliang, a Chinese doctor reprimanded for warning of a new SARS virus, dies of Covid-19. 2013—Mississippi abolishes slavery. 1998—GOP-run Congress names Washington National after the guy who fired all our air traffic controllers. 1991—IRA mortars 10 Downing St. 1968—“It became necessary to destroy [the Vietnamese village of Ben Tre] in order to save it,” an American major tells reporter Peter Arnett. 1965—VC attack Camp Holloway near Pleiku killing 9 Americans and wounding 137. The U.S. responds by bombing North Vietnam. 1951—In Korea, Capt. Lewis Millett leads the U.S.’s most recent bayonet charge. This anachronistic victory earns him the Medal of Honor. 1950—Ex-Emperor Bao Dai …

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2020—It’s 65° Fahrenheit at the Esperanza Base, in Antarctica. 2013—In Seabrook, N.H., Phantom Fireworks sells Tamerlan Tsarnaev 1.5 lbs. of black powder and gives him another 1.5 pounds for free. 1971—Derry, New Hampshire’s own Alan Shepherd uses a nine iron to whack a golf ball on the moon. 1968—NVA troops in Soviet tanks overrun Lang Vei; 21 of 24 Green Berets are KIA, WIA, or captured. 1951—Trespassing at Argonne National Laboratory, blowhard Paul Harvey claims it was inadvertant. A script found in his car proves he’s lying. 1919—Seattle union leaders get a telegram intended for shipyard owners: “no raises.” A General Strike results. Workers run …

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2018—At a rally, D.J. Trump says Democrats who didn’t applaud his State of the Union speech are traitors. 2007—Astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak is arrested for attempting to kidnap the girlfriend of another astronaut and for suspected misappropriation of NASA diapers. 2003—Secretary of State Colin Powell tells the UN that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq is bristling with WMDs. 1992—George Herbert [Hoover] Walker Bush is “amazed” to encounter a supermarket checkout scanner. 1981—For her husband’s 70th birthday, First Lady Nancy Reagan flies her manicurist in from Los Angeles. 1958—A B-47 bomber collides with a jet fighter near Tybee Island off the coast of Georgia and jettisons an H-bomb. …

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2009—While giving a TED Talk on malaria prevention at Long Beach, Calif., Bill Gates releases a jarful of mosquitoes to feast on the audience. 1976—Lockheed admits to paying $22 million in bribes to sell aircraft. 1974—William Randolph Hearst’s granddaughter Patty, 19, is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. 1968—Cholon, Saigon’s Chinatown, is declared a free-fire zone; South Vietnamese pilots bomb their own capitol. 1968—Ur-beat Neal Cassady, 41, dies alongside railroad tracks in Mexico. 1913—Rosa Louise McCauley Parks is born in Tuskegee, Ala. 1912—Franz Reichelt, an Austrian tailor, tests an experimental parachute/overcoat from the Eiffel Tower. His design is fatally flawed. 1899—Five months after being liberated …

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2012—“Today is the day that in 1924 Woodrow Wilson died, that son of a bitch,” radio-active dingbat Glenn Beck says, “and I’m happy.” 2006—After Don Rumsfeld likens H. Chavez to Hitler, Venezuela’s VP compares the U.S. to the Third Reich. 1959—In Iowa, a plane crash kills Buddy Holly, “The Big Bopper,” and Richie Valens. 1956—Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash jam at Sun studio in Memphis. 1953—J. Fred Muggs, a bad-tempered chimpanzee from Cameroon, becomes the first non-human primate to appear regularly on TV. 1943—Four U.S. Navy chaplains aboard the U.S. Army transport Dorchester drown after giving their life jackets to …

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2015—A week after a two-foot snowstorm, Po’Town gets 18 inches more. 2004—George W.[MD] Bush reluctantly OK’s an investigation of intelligence failures. 1991—Before Desert Storm ground combat begins, the Pentagon bans the press from the Dover morgue. 1972—In Dublin, Irish Catholics, irate over “Bloody Sunday,” burn the British Embassy. 1970—Capt. Gary Faust bails out after his F-106 goes into a spin over Montana. The pilotless plane lands in a cornfield and is returned to service. 1966—Australians burn their conscription papers in Sydney. 1965—Protesting a protest against the jailing of MLK, Daniel P. Skelley pours water from a can labeled “gas” all over his American Nazi uniform. …

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